Sleep-Related Declarative Memory Consolidation in Children and Adolescents with Developmental Dyslexia.

Sleep has a crucial role in memory processes, and maturational changes in sleep electrophysiology are involved in cognitive development. Albeit both sleep and memory alterations have been observed in Developmental Dyslexia (DD), their relation in this population has been scarcely investigated, particularly concerning topographical aspects. The study aimed to compare sleep topography and associated sleep-related declarative memory consolidation in participants with DD and normal readers (NR).

Later School Start Time: The Impact of Sleep on Academic Performance and Health in the Adolescent Population.

The crucial role of sleep in physical and mental health is well known, especially during the developmental period. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in examining the relationship between sleep patterns and school performance in adolescents. At this stage of life, several environmental and biological factors may affect both circadian and homeostatic regulation of sleep.

Quantitative assessment of drawing tests in children with dyslexia and dysgraphia.

Drawing tests in children diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia were quantitatively compared. Fourteen children with dysgraphia, 19 with dyslexia and 13 normally developing were asked to copy 3 figures: a circle, a square and a cross. An optoelectronic system allowed the acquisition of the drawing track in three-dimensions.

Silent reading fluency: Implications for the assessment of adults with developmental dyslexia.

Introduction: Understanding silent reading fluency (SRF) is of a paramount importance, given that silent reading is the principal manner of reading for capable readers. But the assessment of SRF is not commonly useful for identifying students with reading difficulties and monitoring their progress. The paper presents the SRF scores of adults with dyslexia compared to SRF scores of skilled readers and discusses the power of the SRF measure in identifying adults with specific learning disorders with impairment in reading.

Age-Related Cortical Thickness Reduction in Non-Demented Down's Syndrome Subjects.

Background And Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristic pattern of age-related cortical thinning in patients with Down Syndrome (DS), as assessed by MRI and automatic cortical thickness measurements.

Methods: Ninety-one non-demented subjects with DS (range 11-53 years) were examined using a 1.5 T scanner.

Age effects on cortical thickness in young Down's syndrome subjects: a cross-sectional gender study.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to determine differences in the characteristic pattern of age-related cortical thinning in men and women with Down's syndrome (DS) by means of MRI and automatic cortical thickness measurements and a cross-sectional design, in a large cohort of young subjects.

Methods: Eighty-four subjects with DS, 30 females (11-35 years, mean age ± SD = 22.8 ± 5.

Response inhibition and adaptations to response conflict in 6- to 8-year-old children: evidence from the Simon effect.

Several studies have shown that the Simon effect, which is the advantage of spatial correspondence between stimulus and response locations when the stimulus location is task-irrelevant, decreases with increasing response times and is affected by preceding-trial correspondence. These modulations suggest the existence of control mechanisms that adapt our behavior to current goals by responding to the conflict experienced within a trial and by preventing the recurrence of a conflict in the subsequent trial. The aim of the present study was to assess whether these control mechanisms, which are well consolidated in adults and in children older than 8 years of age, are present in children between 6 and 8 years old.

A new procedure to measure children's reading speed and accuracy in Italian.

Impaired readers in primary school should be early recognized, in order to asses a targeted intervention within the school and to start a teaching that respects the difficulties in learning to read, to write and to perform calculations. Screening procedures, inside the primary schools aimed at detecting children with difficulties in reading, are of fundamental importance for guaranteeing an early identification of dyslexic children and reducing both the primary negative effects--on learning--and the secondary negative effects--on the development of the personality--of this disturbance. In this study, we propose a new screening procedure measuring reading speed and accuracy.

Assessing decoding ability: the role of speed and accuracy and a new composite indicator to measure decoding skill in elementary grades.

Tools for assessing decoding skill in students attending elementary grades are of fundamental importance for guaranteeing an early identification of reading disabled students and reducing both the primary negative effects (on learning) and the secondary negative effects (on the development of the personality) of this disability. This article presents results obtained by administering existing standardized tests of reading and a new screening procedure to about 1,500 students in the elementary grades in Italy. It is found that variables measuring speed and accuracy in all administered reading tests are not Gaussian, and therefore the threshold values used for classifying a student as a normal decoder or as an impaired decoder must be estimated on the basis of the empirical distribution of these variables rather than by using the percentiles of the normal distribution.

Cortical sources of resting state EEG rhythms are abnormal in dyslexic children.

Objective: Previous studies have been inconclusive whether dominant resting state alpha rhythms differ in amplitude in dyslexic subjects when compared to control subjects, being these rhythms considered as a reflection of effective cortical neural synchronization and cognition. Here we used a validated EEG source estimation to test the hypothesis that resting state alpha rhythms are abnormal in dyslexic subjects and are related to reading deficits.

Methods: Eyes-closed resting state electroencephalographic (EEG) data were recorded in 26 dyslexics (12 males, mean age of 11 years ± 0.

A new approach for the quantitative evaluation of drawings in children with learning disabilities.

A new method for a quantitative and objective description of drawing and for the quantification of drawing ability in children with learning disabilities (LD) is hereby presented. Twenty-four normally developing children (N) (age 10.6 ± 0.

Real-word repetition as a predictor of grammatical competence in Italian children with typical language development.

Background: Non-word repetition in children is a skill related to, but separable from grammatical ability. Lexical skill may bridge the gap between these two abilities.

Aims: The main aim was to determine whether real-word-repetition tasks could be better as predictors of grammatical ability than non-word-repetition tasks in children with typical language.

Neuropsychological deficits and neural dysfunction in familial dyslexia.

We report the neuropsychological profile and the pattern of brain activity during reading tasks in a sample of familial dyslexics. We studied our subjects with an in-depth neuropsychological assessment and with functional neuroimaging (fMRI) during word and pseudoword reading and false font string observations (baseline condition). The neuropsychological assessment revealed that familial dyslexia, in both persistent and compensated forms, is often associated with deficits in verbal short-term memory, phonological awareness and automatization abilities.

How early does morpholexical reading develop in readers of a shallow orthography?

In this research, lexical and morpholexical reading in Italian children ages 8 to 10 years were investigated. Children and control adults were administered two tasks on words and pseudowords: visual lexical decision and naming. Word frequency effects in both lexical decision and naming were found in both children and adults.